


SHUT

by lochTenderness (theseourbodies)



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bleach Fusion, Blood, Borrowed Plot Elements, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27594941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/pseuds/lochTenderness
Summary: The characters change but the fight is familiar.
Relationships: Aomine Daiki & Kuroko Tetsuya, Kagami Taiga & Kuroko Tetsuya
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> it's the month of my birthday and so I can POST WHATeVER I WANT. Plot elements blatantly ripped from chaps. 52-56 of BLEACH with some notable differences because i was working from memory and I uuuuuuuhhhhh completely forgot parts of those chaps apparently. 
> 
> whatever, it's a present to the community with love from my WIP folder! 
> 
> thanks @cisforcaffeinated for feeding me the name of Aomine's sword

In her release state,  Hoshinuki is restless in his hands, the tips of her claws twitching, looking for something this battle won't be able to give her. His battle sense itches still, but the fight's done, and there's nothing more to do except take out his pent-up rage on the body of a boy lying subjugated on the ground. There's no honor in a battle like this; there’s only left-over rage ripping at his bones and a sulking zanpakuto.

Flicking his fingers to clear some of the dripping blood, Daiki reaches for  Hoshinuki in his mind. He tries his hand at softness and, as usual, gets his ass bitten for the trouble. She hisses at him and stalks deeper into the thick, green-black jungle. He curses her silently and retreats himself, back into the material plane. Her claws flow back from his hands like water without his permission; in an instant, she is a handsome, matte black blade in his hands again. Sealed from her release state-- sealed from  _ him _ . 

He sheaths the blade without ceremony and focuses outward again. 

The massive, chipped blade glints in the electric street lights the living world is so fond of, shattered raggedly in half. He kicks it vindictively aside. Another perfect victory, another broken blade.

[no glory at all,] growls  Hoshinuki in the back of his mind, [no glory in a victory like this.]

Daiki ignores her and looms large over his true prey, who sits with that useless, defeated boy's head in his lap, talking to him in a low voice. 

[This victory will be sweeter,] he tells her. He can almost pretend that it will be the truth. 

Blue eyes acknowledge his presence after a deliberate moment. The man goes quiet and straightens from his defensive curl over the body on the ground in one smooth motion. His hands remain where they are-- stained red, one curled around a pale cheek, the other clenched in the tattered edges of fabric exposing the deepest cut on the boy's chest.

"Tetsu," Daiki drawls, "this is a hell of a way to greet an old friend, isn't it?"

"Surely if I saw an old friend, I would have greeted him properly," says Akashi Tetsuya, wanted traitor to Soul Society and, indeed, one of the oldest friends that Daiki can call his own. Any softness in his face that Daiki had caught when Tetsu had looked at him for the first time is gone. 

Daiki bares his teeth in something like a grin. It feels good to be here, he tells himself. [Tetsu is  good prey], he tells  Hoshinuki . If his words reach her, she doesn't bother to respond. 

"If the Lieutenant is done with his taunting, I am prepared to leave with him," Tetsu continues, like he’s accepting a n invitation for a drink. But his hands have always made a liar out of him; they are more honest than anything else about him. He brushes a hand gently back through the boy's bangs once, his thumb stroking the pinched skin between his eyebrows as if to ease the pain. He shifts the boy gently from his lap to the ground and goes to rise-- only to be stopped short when the boy's hand latches on to his arm in a feat of strength that has Daiki's hand instantly on his sword hilt, ready. Tetsu sees the motion and throws his free hand up between Daiki and the two of them, as if that will be enough to stop them. 

"Kagami-kun \--!”

"Tetsu-- ya ," the boy wheezes. "N-no, Te--" 

Tetsu curls his free hand over the boy’s. Daiki watches dispassionately, a hand still on  Hoshinuki’s hilt.

"Enough. Enough,  Kagami-kun , be still." 

Talking to this stupid human, Tetsu’s voice sounds so strange; it mirrors the unfamiliar tremble in his hands as he gently, carefully pries the boy's hand away from his arm. He turns shining eyes back on Daiki; Daiki clenches his hand on instinct. He’s not used to seeing so much in that face. 

"Lieutenant , he is no threat. I am coming with you peacefully," Tetsu continues, rising despite the boy's-- Kagami's \-- agonized sound of protest. "I will not be any trouble. I will not be any more trouble," he finishes softly; the last words are only for the shaking boy reaching for him from the ground.

His reaching hand meets only empty air. Tetsu takes one step, then another.  Kagami rolls  to his belly  with a gasp, but he can only watch as Tetsu slips from his grasp completely. 

Tetsu looks Daiki straight in the eye as he approaches; any emotion that had slipped through his control is locked away once more. "Let us end this,  Aomine-kun . Take me home." 

Daiki sweeps  Hoshinuki free of her sheath without another word, and the gate slides open at his command smoothly. When they are through, the gates close behind them on a wordless, throbbing cry.


	2. Coda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And the rest.

They step through the gate and Tetsuya finds himself back in the Soul Society once again; the hell butterfly just brushes his cheek on its way past, and it is the most real sensation that has reached him since he last left. He takes his first easy breath in months; he does not allow the bitterness that it is not a breath of free air into his heart for even a moment. The cut on his cheek stings; the deeper marks on his shoulder are still bleeding sluggishly and throbbing in counterpoint to the bruises he can already feel blooming on his back and sides. He does not allow the discomfort to leave him cowed; it grounds him, as it always has. He is no stranger to pain.

As expected, it is Aomine- kun's captain that awaits them when the gate closes completely behind him. Tetsuya had known the severity of his crimes when he had offered Kagami Taiga his power to save what little family Kagami-kun had left; he had known that the consequences would be grave if he survived, and here he was: a survivor. 

"Let me go, Lieutenant," he tells Aomine-kun without looking at him. "There is nowhere left to run, and I will not suffer being passed around like a sack of flour." 

Aomine-kun's hand bites into his shoulder; Tetsuya imagines that he can perceive the prickle of claws even with Hoshinuki safely sealed and sheathed at Aomine-kun's side. 

"Ah, still  lettin ’ that mouth get you into trouble aren’t you, Akashi-san?" 

Tetsuya draws himself up. "In light of my new, criminal nature, I hope that Captain  Imayoshi will refer to me as Kuroko Tetsuya, and not by my family name." Better not to involve the family. Better to release his brother from this scandal as soon as possible. Hopefully they could make a clean break of it. 

Second Division's  Captain Imayoshi cocks his head and looks utterly amused. 

"And if I say that  Captain Akashi hasn't earned that  kinda favor from me, what then?"  Captain Imayoshi asks cheerfully, and steps forward. On cue, the ranks of his division seem to flow into place behind him, all of them cowled in the customary uniform-- with a sparse handful of exceptions. "And you've been an impressive thorn in my side for long enough that I don't owe anything to you, either." Despite the words, there's no implicit aggression;  Captain Imayoshi talks as if he and Tetsuya have stopped to talk with one another in a corridor. 

"However, it  _ was  _ the best hunt I've had in a very long time." The captain holds up a set of red bindings with something that looks very much like regret. "So, let me welcome you back properly before we get down to business, Kuroko-kun." 

It's a small concession, and a cold comfort; but it  _ is  _ a comfort, one that was entirely unlooked for given the nature of his return. Tetsuya bows his head and steps into the space between them with no further pleasantries. Aomine- kun's hand slides off his shoulder with barely a second's hesitation, and Tetsuya, again, pushes away bitterness. 

The deep voice of Captain  Imayoshi's fourth seated officer has always been far too loud for such a secretive division; it booms out even now, in this crowded place.

“Please state your name and rank, soul reaper,” he commands, and Tetsuya bows, a precise angle despite how his back wants to give and his legs tremble. 

"Yes, sir. My name is Kuroko Tetsuya, lieutenant of the Thirteenth Division under Captain Kiyoshi Teppei. For my crimes against the Soul Society, I surrender myself to the justice of the Soul Society," he recites, and does not allow his voice to waiver; his hands, similarly, do not shake. 

"I surrender myself to your custody," he continues quietly, "until a decision is rendered and my fate may be sealed." 

The bindings slide over his wrists and neck eagerly, red like open wounds. They feel like a verdict already, a failure written large for the world to see. 

"I accept your surrender, Kuroko Tetsuya,"  Captain Imayoshi responds after sealing the bindings tightly with a murmured word. His voice has lost all inflection; it rings out clearly in the confines of the entrance hall, acknowledged silently by his division and the representatives of the court hovering behind them. His face bares no judgement or censure—it mimics Tetsuya’s stillness like a clear, calm lake. 

It is a cold comfort, Tetsuya thinks again. But a comfort, none the less.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on the tweeter: [@theseourbodies](https://twitter.com/theseourbodies)


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